Reese’s lips tightened. “Her heat signature won’t be the same.”
“The hunter’s signature isn’t, but hers will not be the same as a hunter’s either.”
“The variation is only slight. It might not arouse suspicions,” Dante pointed out, but they all knew they couldn’t afford to take the chance. Even if not for the fact that she was human, she’d broken into the med center. It didn’t matter why, if she’d taken anything or not, she would still be punished if she were caught.
When they arrived at the area where Amaryllis had disappeared into the forest, they saw that the guards were walking the city perimeter, having decided, apparently, that their culprit would have re-entered the city at some point. The three exchanged a look.
“This explains why she hasn’t returned. She wouldn’t risk leading them back.”
Cain surveyed the forest and frowned. “She was curious about the natives. Is there any possibility, do you think, that she found them? Possibly made friends?”
“No,” Reese and Dante said almost simultaneously.
Cain’s brows rose.
“They are cannibals,” Reese said tightly. “We drove them from this place.”
Cain felt his gut clench. “They’re humanoid?”
Reese shrugged. “Two legged beasts, at any rate. They stalk a lone victim and attack in packs, like wild dogs. Two of our number were slain, their heads taken as prizes, before we discovered there were hostiles nearby.” He turned to look at Cain for the first time. “I do not believe that they would come near, but if they have taken our Amy, she has not found friends.”
Chapter Twenty Eight
When they had followed the signs of her passing to the stream, they surveyed a wide circle around it, looking for any sign of where she’d emerged. Finding nothing, they decided they would have to split up. Reese would go north. Dante and Cain would go south.
Cain glanced at Dante several times as they jogged along the streambed, scanning the embankment on either side. “Reese thinks she went the other way.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t argue.”
“Thinking is not knowing. We cannot afford to lose time by all going the wrong way.”
Cain shrugged, unable to argue with the logic of that statement. “There is one little problem, however.”
“What?”
“If Reese finds sign first, we’ll have no way of knowing it. By the time we realize we’ve gone the wrong way, it could be too late for both of them.”
“I will know,” Dante said simply. “And Reese will know if we find anything. This is the reason we took different directions instead of the same. So that each of us would know which direction she has gone without losing time.”
Cain frowned. “Telepathy?”
Dante shrugged. “Perhaps, of a sort. It is more like I know what he wishes me to know and he knows what I wish him to know than speech of any sort. It is what led us to one another to begin with.”
He stopped abruptly, turning, lifting his head as if he was listening to something Cain couldn’t hear. “She is taken,” he growled, heading back the way they’d come at a run.
Cain caught up to him after a few moments. “He’s found her?”
“Her heat signature. A faint trace only, but she cannot be far or he would not have seen that.”
* * * *
The first thing that Amaryllis became aware of was that her head felt as if it would explode. The pain in her ribcage was the second sensation her mind interpreted and fear followed that, the knee jerk fear that something had happened to the baby. A split second before she moved to avoid the discomfort, she realized her ribs were aching because of the bony shoulder digging into it. The realization saved her from giving herself away.
As her mind cleared, she became aware of a nearly overwhelming stench.
It took her several moments to realize the stench was coming from the creature that was carrying her and those that surrounded her. Pushing her discomfort to the back of her mind, she expanded her senses to detect what she could without giving herself away.
